Transcript
So earlier this year, I opened up a forgotten dresser drawer, and inside was a dusty envelope. And through the magic of television, we're going to show you a picture of what it looked like. There's that drawer. This is a true story. So I picked up the envelope and I looked a little bit more closely at what it said in faded blue type on the upper left-hand corner.
Can we get a close up? You guys see what that says? US Mint, 1977, uncirculated coin. And I flipped the envelope over and it was empty. And I became profoundly sad on two levels.
One, because the envelope was empty, and that's not what an envelope is supposed to be. And two, because it talked about a coin that was uncirculated. Now I know about collector value, and I guess an uncirculated coin would be more valuable, but a coin is supposed to be circulated. That's the point of a coin. And so it struck me here on Pentecost, God wants to fill you with the Holy Spirit.
You are not designed, watch this, to be empty. You are designed to be filled. And then, if you look at what happened after the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit, they went out. They circulated. You are not designed to be uncirculated.
You are designed to circulate. And God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, gives you the ability to do that. Acts chapter 2, verse 4. Suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues as a fire appeared among them and a tongue rested on each of them.
All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit. And before that in Acts chapter 1, Jesus says to them, you're going to circulate, listen to this, chapter 1 verse 8, Jesus says, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. You're going to go circulate is what Jesus says. I want to talk to you today about the power of Pentecost, the purpose of Pentecost, and the pleasure of Pentecost. Let's start with the purpose, the purpose of Pentecost. The purpose of Pentecost is to give you a purpose, and me too.
A lot of people go around saying, what is my purpose? And that's a hard place to be, but it certainly helps when you know that you have a purpose from God. Actually, it changes everything, Because God is not building a belief system. God is building a kingdom. Amen.
And if you look at the Bible, God is always telling people to do something. Says to Abram, Abram believe in me. And then stay in a quiet tent, quietly believing in me?
No. Go forth from this country to a new land that I will show you. Go, do it. I was thinking about Esther in the book of Esther. God says to her through Mordecai, what, believe in me and then go sit quietly in a room?
No. Esther, for such a time as this, you have been called to do something. When you are baptized, you are filled with the Holy Spirit, and you become a kingdom builder with God building his kingdom. He says, go do something. If you're wondering about your purpose, there's this prayer at the end of our prayer book.
It was written by Archbishop William Temple, and it's probably my favorite prayer in the end of the prayer book. It's called the Prayer of Self Dedication, and at the end, it says, Lord, for your glory and the welfare of your people. I just love that. That's an encapsulation right there of purpose. If you're wondering, well, what is my purpose?
That's a pretty good place to start. Lord, let me live for your glory and the welfare of your people. That's a statement of purpose. The power of Pentecost. Long story short, the Holy Spirit wants to fill you from the inside out
The Holy Spirit wants to get into your life and move with power. My family and I, a couple of days ago, were at this awesome Christian concert. It was the Tasha Layton concert. Did I get her name right? Tasha Layton.
She is so cool. If you haven't heard her music, go online, download it. She's awesome. And her most favorite song, or famous song probably is called Look What You've Done in Me. And there's this line where it says, standing in your presence, Lord, I can feel you dig in all my roots up.
Because it's a song about God healing her past, and she's come through trauma and depression, and she's a witness to coming through on the other side of that through the power of God working in her life through the Holy Spirit. So in this song, she says, standing in your presence, Lord, I can feel you digging all my roots up. But for the first year of me listening to this song on the radio, I thought she was saying, standing in your presence, Lord, I can feel you digging on my rooftop. You're like, why would you think it was that? Well, because I was thinking of the gospel story where Jesus is healing people in the house, and the four friends have the man who's paralyzed, and they're trying to get in, but it's too full, so they go up on top of the roof, and they cut a hole in the top of the roof and lower him down, and I'm like, yeah, Lord, you're digging on my rooftop.
So with apologies to Tasha Layton, I'm going to keep singing it that way. But whether the Holy Spirit is digging your roots up or digging on your rooftop, The Holy Spirit wants to get into your life, and the Spirit will not use force, but the Spirit only needs a little opening, just a little opening to move. 1 tear of repentance is sometimes all that it takes and the Holy Spirit will move with power. I don't know what you're carrying with you today, but it is just true that everybody walks into this room with a backpack. And inside that backpack is all sorts of stuff, right?
We're carrying it around. Maybe past hurts, regrets, things done and left undone. And it's just, there's a little aside, but it's a good reminder that when you're talking to someone, you don't know what's in their backpack. But here's the truth. The Holy Spirit wants to move in your life with power, and the Holy Spirit can heal from the inside out, whatever you're carrying.
The pleasure of Pentecost. Again, I was just thinking about that concert and this woman, Tasha Layton, she was just witnessing in between her songs and at one point she just said, y'all, she's from South Carolina and she lives in Nashville so she can say that, but she goes, Y'all, there is nothing better than the love of God. There is nothing better than the love of God. Even when things don't go my way, There is nothing better than the love of God. The pleasure of Pentecost is the power of the Holy Spirit moving in your life and saying, there is nothing better than me.
Which is pretty cool because we live in a culture that says, try this, try this. Have you noticed that about our culture? Everywhere you look, the culture's saying, try this, try this, try this, try this. Turns out there is nothing better than the love of God.
Last thing. The coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost created a movement, a worldwide movement, which fulfilled the promise of the Old Testament that the grace of God would go to the ends of the earth and that every nation and tongue would come through the people of Israel as a light to the nations to worship God, to worship the Lord. And so Christianity, the gospel, is from the very beginning inherently international, intercultural, interlingual, intergenerational. It's a worldwide movement. That same spirit wants to fill you and me.
And by the way, if you're feeling like you're empty a little bit, well, God offers free refills. So be filled and then circulate. Why? For the glory of God and the welfare of his people. And thanks be to God.
Amen.
